BELT CONVEYOR

 Working principle of belt conveyor

 Classification
 Main elements belt conveyor and their property
 Design parameters
A belt conveyor is a bulk material handling equipment.
The most versatile and least expensive among the mechanical

conveying equipment.
Have large load carrying capacity up to 30 million kg/hr over
long distance up to 3-4km in single conveyor and up to 100km
in systems comprising of numbers of conveyors.
Belt conveyor is an endless belt operating between two or
more pulleys with its load supported on idlers.
Conveyor belts are used in a wide variety of material
transport applications such as manufacturing, food
processing, and heavy industry.
A belt conveyor system consists of two or more pulleys
(sometimes referred to as drums), with an endless loop of
carrying medium—the conveyor belt—that rotates about
them.

One or both of the pulleys are powered, moving the belt

and the material on the belt forward. The powered pulley
is called the drive pulley while the unpowered pulley is
called the idler pulley
Feed unit
Belt
Idlers
Pulleys
Drive Unit
Supporting Structure or frame
Discharge unit
 1.Belt
 Materials :
A. Rubber
 used for bulk material
B. Woven cloth
oLight weight material
C. Steel
 For metal industries

Belt Characteristics
High strength
Low mass
Low relative elongation
Low hygroscopicity
High wear resistance
2. Drive mechanism
 For single pulley drive up to
30-50 kW is required.
 We can provide up to 250
kW.
 Depends on pulley drive.
3. Pulleys
a)Head Pulley;-turns belt back around to
return -may be coupled to drive
b)Tail Pulley;-turns empty belt around for
loading
c)Snub Pulley;-usually used to change
direction of belt
d)Take Up Pulley;-Used to maintain
tension on a belt left loose enough for
some flexibility
4. Idlers
oSupports Belt and Material Load
oBuilt with Shaft surrounded by bearings
oEfficiency of conveyor largely dependent it.
oIts diameter ranges from 4 to 7 inches.
 Idler type
1. Flat belt idler
 Used for granular materials of angle of repose not
less than 35º.
 Preferred for low capacity where inexpensive
conveying is required.
2. Toughing idlers with20º trough
 Used for conveying all kinds of bulk material
3. Toughing idlers with 35º and 45ºtrough
 Mainly used for transportation of small particle
light weight materials like grains, cotton seed
etc…
 Used for carrying heavier, medium size lumps
ASPECTS OF BELT CONVEYOR DESIGN
Checking/determining capacity of a belt convey, (to check at what rate
(tons/hrs. or units/min) a belt conveyor can convey a particular bulk
material or unit loads. Conversely, it is to find out the size and speed of
the conveyor to achieve a given conveying rate.)
Calculating maximum belt tension required to convey the load,
Belt selection,

Selection of driving pulley,

Determination of motor power,

Selection of idlers and its spacing.
 1. Cross sectional area
 The cross sectional area depends on whether the belt is
supported on straight rollers or on trough rollers.
For straight support cross – sectional area of the bulk load will be,
1 1 b
Ab  bhC  b( tan  r )C Ab  [0.25 tan  r ]C b 2  K aC b 2
2 2 2
B
TheB load will be the
b
sum
b
of the upper
r
triangle + lower
r
trapezium whose
sides are formed by
a) straight support b) trough support the side roller
Where; B = total width of the belt supports.
b = carrying width of the belt,
h= height of the load layer on the belt, the value of b usually taken to be
(b=0.9B – 0.05) , to avoid spilling of materials from the belt
 r  the angle of repose of the bulk load on moving belt.
αr- the angle of repose at rest
   0.35r
C  depends on the angle of inclination and flowability of the material.
 rr 

C

For typical smooth belt

Flowability C0  
of material  r  β=1-5 β=6-10
0
β=11-150 β=16-200 β=20-240

High 100 0.95 0.95 0.85 0.80 -

Medium 150 1.0 0.97 0.95 0.90 0.85
Low 200 1.0 0.98 0.97 0.95 0.90

Typical value of K a for different types of materials and for different

type of roller supports are given below;
Type of  r inclination Flowability of materials
idler of side roller
High Medium Low
Straight
Troughing -- 0.044 0.067 0.091
200 0.109 0.1306 0.1528
0
 2. Maximum rated capacity
 The maximum rated capacity of the conveyor will be;

Qm  Ab v s  K aC b v s 2

Where; v = linear speed of the belt (m/s)

ρs = bulk density of the material (kg/m3)
Materials of high flowability are free –flowing materials like,
cement, dry coke, dry sand, flour, coal dust etc. which have low
angle of response
 r (300 to 350 )
Solids of medium flowability have higher angle of repose (40 0-450),
crushed stone, wet sand, coal, peat and slag.
Low flowability material have even higher angle of repose (500–560),
wet lime, wet clay etc.
 3. Speed and width of belt
 Speed should not increase from 3.5m/s.
 For grain conveying: 2.5to2.8m/s.
 Belt width in meter; 1
Qm
B  1.1b  0.056  1.1[ ]  0.056
2
K aC v s
if the conveyor is intended to convey lumpy materials the belt width
can be determined from the above equation and it should be checked
for the lumpiness of the material by condition,
B  C a ( a )  0 .2
a  maximum lump size for ungraded and average lump size for graded.
Ca  may be taken to be 3.5 for graded and 2.5 for ungraded
The belt width can rounded off to any one among the standard series, 0.3,
0.4, 0.65, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 m.
A belt conveyor with an inclination of 15 degree to
the horizontal is to be used for the transportation of
dry salt from the dryer to the silo. The dry salt
particles are of size 10 to 30mm and of bulk density
2600 kg/m3. Production at the factory is 16000
tone/hr. the materials with around 10% moisture
may be taken as medium flowable. For a belt speed of
1.6 m/s, calculate the width of the belt to be used for
the above purpose.
Data; Ka= 0.067,
4. Diameter of pulleys

d  C p ( NC pl )

Where ; Cpl = coefficient depending on strength of ply fabric

Cp = coefficient depending on type of pulley
N = number of plies

For a pulleys
 in a single pulley drives, Cp=1.0;
 in double pulley drives Cp = 1.1,
The selected diameter of the drive pulley should be checked
for the belt pressure, acting on the pulley surface which
should not exceed the maximum permissible value, Pba
2T0 e   w  1
Pb  [ ][   w ]
 wd d B e

The value of Pba for rubber-fabric belts is 0.2-0.3N/m2. the

estimated diameters of the pulleys must be ultimately rounded
off to the nearest standard values such as; 0.16, 0.2, 0.25, 0.315,
0.4, 0.5, 0.63, 0.8, 1.0, 1.25, 1.4, 1.6, 2.0 and 2.5m.
5. Required horsepower ; The power consumption or
required to the drive motor

POWER REQUIREMENT
Total Power is summation of
Power to move empty belt,
Power to move load horizontally,
Power to move load vertically.
the total resistance to the motion of the belt (W) over the entire conveyor path

W  K tb L[(ql  qus  qb )Cu  (qb  qls )Cl ]  ql H

Qa is average rated capacity of the conveyor (kg/s) and v
linear velocity(m/s) then;
Qa g
ql 
v
For unit loads, if ml is the mass of heaviest piece of load and
l0 is the spacing between the adjacent pieces
ml g
ql 
l0
qb  linear gravity force of the belt qb  mb gB
mb  mass per unit area of the belt (kg/m2) obtained from
manufacturers catalogue.

The linear gravity force of rotating elements of the rollers support

on the upper and lower part of the belt
lus and lls are spacings between
m g m g the upper and lower
qlus  us qls  ls
supports.
lus lls
 Typical value of K tb as a function of conveyor length.

Conveyor length 10 20 30 40 50 100 200 300 500 800 1000

K tb
4.5 3.2 2.8 2.6 2.4 1.7 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.1

The coefficients Cu and Ci resistance to the motion of

upper run and lower run of the belt.
Once we have estimated W the power consumption or
power of the drive motor can be computed as,
Wv
P [ ]K ma

Condition of
conveyor Conveyor Conveyor length
operation length 100m 100m

Good 0.02 0.018 0.018

Moderate 0.025 0.022 0.022
Heavy (summer) 0.035 0.032 0.030
Heavy (winter) 0.045 0.042 0.040
 (

6. Belt Tension
To determine the required strength of the belt, we have to estimate the rated
tension in the belt.
 In belt conveyor, the motive force to draw the belt with load is transmitted to the belt
by friction between the belt and the driving pulley rotated by an electric motor.
 If is the tension in the belt section running on a pulley and in that
running off that pulley, then,
T0
Tf
T0
From Euler's law of friction drive  e   w
Tf
   is coefficient of friction between the belt and the pulley
 w  the wrapping angle of the belt on the pulley in radians (П radian= 1800)
The tractive force, W, will then be equal to difference between To and Tf as,
  w
(T  T ) T (e  1) T  K W ma K We   w

W
0

f f
f   w T  ma

(e  1)   w
0
K ma K ma (e  1)
 Some of the rated values of   for rubber covered belts are given below.


Surface of State of contacting Atmospheric Condition

drive surface of pulley and belt condition of operation  
Steel or cast Clean Dry Good 0.35
iron, without Dusty Dry Moderate 0.30
lining Contaminated with Humid Heavy 0.20
unsticky material
Contaminated with Humid Heavy 0.10
sticky materials
Rubber- lined Clean Dry Good 0.50
Dusty Dry Moderate 0.40
Contaminated with Humid Heavy 0.25
unsticky material
Contaminated with Humid Heavy 0.15
sticky materials
Lined with Clean Dry Good 0.45
rubberized Dusty Dry Moderate 0.35
tape without Contaminated with Humid Heavy 0.25
coating unsticky material
Contaminated with Humid Heavy 0.10
sticky materials
For a double pulley drive, the above equation can be
modified to determine the rated tension in the belt as,
K maWe   ( w1  w 2 )
T01 
(e  ( w1  w 2 )  1)

Where;
T01 - is the tension in the belt section running on the first pulley along the path

of the belt
 w1 &  w2 
are the wrapping angle on the first and second pulleys respectively.

For single pulley drives the wrapping angle is limited by not more
than 2400, where as larger wrapping angles up to 400 0 can be
employed with double pulley drives.
The required strength of the belt (Sr) is obtained as;

(T0 or T01 ) K
Src 
B
Where K is the safety margin of the belt strength
 High load carrying capacity (up to 30000t/h)
 Large length of conveying path (up to 3-4 km in single conveyor)
 Simple design, require simple arrangements both at loading &
unloading ends.
 Easy maintenance
 High reliability for operation
 More flexible
 Silent continuous transport.
 Require less manpower.
 Less accident prone.
 Multipoint loading is convenient.
 Energy efficient
 Less prone to breakdowns.
 Vertical transportation can not be done.
 Hot materials can not be transported .
 Conveying of sticky material is associated with
problems of cleaning and discharge causing poor
productivity.